


everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

by eleven_twelve



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - High School, Jaehyun mentioned - Freeform, M/M, Mark Centric, as usual, donghyuck is the sun, incredibly self indulgent i just suddenly missed markhyuck sm so..., lowkey based this off narnia pls dont copyright me cs lewis coochie eyes emoji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22558156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleven_twelve/pseuds/eleven_twelve
Summary: underneath the weeping willow, mark finds a boy.(alternatively: the sun prince has disappeared and mark is the only one who knows where to find him.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 29
Kudos: 128





	everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

If Mark focuses hard enough, he can see remnants of sunlight dancing like orange flares on the backs of his eyelids. There's been an unexplainable tugging at his heartstrings since early morning, a tingling in the tips of his fingers. His necklace feels like its burning into his skin. Jaemin sits beside him on the riverbank, shirt untucked, tie undone, the bridge of his nose burnt bright red. Summer buzzes loudly in their ears. Mark digs his fingernails into the dirt to keep them still.

Renjun has gone home early to help his mother cook dinner. The yellowed grass is still flattened from where he lay. Mark opens his eyes and stares at the clouds gathering above them, dark and threatening. It's been dry for so long that they can no longer dangle their legs into the water. The downpour that comes when the clouds break is welcomed by the entire world.

Jaemin runs first, holding his backpack above his head to shield his bright pink hair from the rain. “Let’s get to Doyoung’s café,” he yells through the gusts of rain and wind, a wide smile on his face despite the water streaming down his cheeks. His legs and yellow uniform jacket are covered in mud. Mark blinks away the suns in his eyes and follows in his wake.

Doyoung’s café is two blocks down from the river, past the convenience store where they ate ramen earlier, at the end of a sycamore lined street. The door is closed when Jaemin starts frantically knocking on it, but Doyoung sticks his head through the window with a scowl and opens it for them. An orange cat slips past his legs and speeds into the washed-out night, red light floods them from inside, and before Doyoung can get a word out, Mark and Jaemin have discarded their wet shoes onto the wooden floors.

“Jaemin, you’re in the third year. I take it you know how to read by now,” Doyoung sighs, pointing at the sign that hangs on the door. _CLOSED_ it reads in red block letters. The edges of the paper are curled up from the humidity. Mark rests his chin in his hands and watches amusedly how Doyoung’s frown melts away when Jaemin smiles at him, rolling down to the floor to join the puddles of rainwater that have gathered around them.

Doyoung brings them soda and rice noodle soup. He sits cross-legged on the floor and watches them eat in silence as the rain ticks against the windows. Jaemin curls himself into the oversized t-shirt Doyoung gave him and tells him about the high grades he got on his history test, and how he accidentally kicked a ball into his friend’s face when they played soccer at lunch. Mark rolls the sun pendant on his necklace between his fingers and ignores the tingling in his legs.

“I’m going to call your parents so they can come pick you up,” Doyoung says when it’s late, and it still hasn’t stopped raining, and Jaemin has run out of stories to tell. He fishes his cell out of the back pocket of his blue jeans and retreats to the second floor, his duck slippers squeaking loudly with every step.

“I got those for him when he turned twenty,” Jaemin laughs, “He’s too kind to throw them away even though I know he hates them.”

Mark smirks and bites down on the wooden stick of the ice pop he ate hours ago. He reaches out to wipe away a smear of dried mud on the side of Jaemin’s cheek, but his fingers are trembling so hard that he pokes his eye instead.

“Sorry, man,” he apologises with a giggle, instinctively reaching out to cradle Jaemin’s head. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

There comes no response. Instead, Jaemin pulls away from Mark’s grasp and focusses his gaze on something behind Mark’s left shoulder. His eyes widen, and for a moment he looks exhilarated, then he stills completely. 

“Jaemin, stop,” Mark says when it’s been dead silent for a solid minute, poking at Jaemin’s chest to get him to move. He has always been the prankster of their friend group, but something about the look in Jaemin’s eyes is so unsettling it ties his stomach into knots. “This isn’t funny anymore.”

The ground is shaking soundlessly underneath his feet.

It has stopped raining. Where the moonlight falls through the windows it seems like there’s silver seeping down the walls. The orange cat is sitting on the windowsill and stares at Mark with bright blue eyes. Mark doesn’t even think when he stands up, his knees almost giving out, and walks towards the door like the floor is made of quicksand.

The walls start crumbling down as soon as Mark puts his hand on the door handle. The red lanterns above the bar flash a couple of times before they fade out, and the whole room turns dark and leaves Mark doused in liquid moonlight feeling like his body no longer belongs to him.

“Open it,” a deep voice sounds from everywhere.

The sky is gaping black hole completely void of stars above Mark’s head when he pushes the door open. Under his bare feet the sand is still warm where he steps into it from the small patch of wooden floor that remains of Doyoung’s café. Where the cat sat in front of the window gentle waves roll onto the beach, pulled in by the moon that hangs low on the horizon.

Mark spins on his heel to take in his surroundings. The bay he’s standing in forms a perfect crescent, with luscious hills rolling into the open arms of the ocean all around him. Above the small islands along the outer edge of the bay hangs another moon, shining a weak yellow onto the ripples of the water below.

There's a trail of footsteps in the sand that leads into the grassland on the hillside. Mark follows the footprints in the dirt until he’s on top of the hill, where the grassland gives way to a forest that stretches across the hills as far as the eye can see. The needles on the ground are damp and cold. Mark thinks of all the times his father took him camping in the summers back in Canada, when the nights smelled like resin and they would make wishes on falling stars. He wonders if he’d find him in this dream.

“Mark!” Jaemin’s voice sounds far away. Mark chooses to ignore it, he doesn’t want to wake up yet.

“Mark!” Jaemin sounds a lot closer this time. He comes running up the hill with his arms full of sticks, his eyes gleaming with joy in the silver night. Mark drags himself towards him and plops down onto the grass, closing his eyes with a smile as a gentle breeze tugs at his hair.

“Just five more minutes, Jaemin.”

A heavy weight on his chest startles him out of his daze. Jaemin sits on top of him with his legs stretched out on either side. The mud on his cheek is still there, as is Doyoung’s bright orange t-shirt, fluttering wildly around Jaemin’s lean frame. He's not dreaming.

“You’re not dreaming, Mark,” Jaemin confirms when Mark’s head stops spinning. He looks up at the empty sky with a laugh that makes the trees shudder and the ocean sing. When he stands up to let Mark breathe, the wind embraces him like a long-lost friend.

“Where are we?” Mark asks, tentatively, as if the world might punish him for not knowing.

Jaemin lifts his hands and gestures to everything there is, the ocean, the hills, the mountains in the distance and the clear night skies. “Mark,” he says, “Behold the great county of Solis.”

-

The moons have passed one another in orbit. Mark sits on a rock by the waterfront and dangles his feet in the cold water. Jaemin left him to find something a long time ago and the sun still hasn’t risen. He fishes his phone out of his pocket to check but the numbers have frozen, it’s been twelve past midnight for hours. Maybe time doesn’t exist out here.

Mark stares out over the expanse of sea before him and tries to imagine the end of the world.

Jaemin told him about the country, about the wars it waged and the unconditional love of its people. He says a lion built the world from nothing but the sound of its voice. He's been here once before, years ago, when he was a king in the court of his older cousin Jaehyun and moved mountains with a single wave of his hand. He says a castle used to stand on jagged cliffs, so high the clouds would hang around their feet sometimes. He says the sea ate away at them, and reduced them to the rocks Mark is sitting on, the soft rolling of hills into the water. He says thousands of years must have passed. Mark isn’t so sure he believes him.

“I found it!” Jaemin comes running down the beach, wearing a dark blue tunic with a lion embroidered on the front, a golden cape flutters behind him on the wind. He looks like a knight out of old European folk tales.

“Come on.”

Mark follows him through the woods until they reach a small clearing. A grove of apple trees hides a small stone wall with an old wooden door that has been pushed open. Between the shrubbery Mark can still see the glittering surface of the sea. Jaemin smiles at him and extends a hand. “After you,” he says, and uses the flashlight on his phone to light the way.

A stone staircase leads down into a large cave. All along the walls are carvings of what Mark assumes to be pivotal moments in the history of Solis. There’s the coronation of three human children, a woman holding the sun in her hands, and a lion that watches over them all.

The cave itself empty save for three statues, a man, a woman and another man, all three are guarding large wooden chests. One of the chests is wide open, Mark assumes it’s Jaemin’s. Jaemin points at the statue of the other man.

“There’s Jaehyun’s stuff,” he says. Something in his voice sounds like it’s stuck. “You can wear it if you want.”

Mark nods and opens the chest. There's a bunch of neatly folded tunics on one side, orange and yellow and red, and armour on the other. A crown of silver stars sits on top. He changes into one of the orange tunics and makes sure to leave everything else exactly as it was.

“Here.” Jaemin hands him a dagger with a light blue heft, a small smile pulling at his lips, “We might need it.”

“Sick,” Mark responds despite the shudder that runs down his spine. Jaemin nods and lets out a laugh that bounces merrily throughout the cave. The ground shakes when Mark looks up at him.

.

When they are back on the beach, sitting around a small campfire, Mark glances at Jaemin who is drawing in the sand. He turns the fish that they are roasting in the fire and listens to the crackling of the wood. Jaemin erases his drawing and leans back on his hands, his face orange and yellow and red. Mark sniffs and Jaemin looks up at him, the salt of the wind burning in his nose.

“Who was the other statue?” He asks, shattering the silence huddled between them.

“My sister, she was the queen.”

Mark makes a faint noise of hesitation in the back of his throat and Jaemin sighs. “I feel like you don’t believe me.” There's a look on his face Mark has never seen before. “But this is real, Mark. Tomorrow, when the sun has risen, we’ll go and find out why I was called back.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark replies after a while, when the waves have stopped crashing and the wind has stopped singing, but Jaemin has already fallen asleep. Guilt eats away at him, like the wind does at the cliffs and the mountains, and Mark is scared that there will be nothing left of him. A part of him wants this world to be real, but it’s too difficult to wrap his head around. Instead, he digs his fingers into the warm sand and tells himself he’ll wake up on the floor of Doyoung‘s café.

-

It’s still dark when Mark wakes up. There's sand on his left cheek and a dull ache in his shoulders. Jaemin is asleep a little further away, with his head resting on the golden velvet of his cape. The air feels lighter around him, and the sand warmer. The world loves him and Mark is cold. Between them the fire has burnt out, leaving only smouldering coals and darkness.

Mark gets up and stretches, the orange tunic straining across his chest. He thinks of the king it was made for and wonders if the wind used to embrace him like it does Jaemin, if the moons followed him in his wake. Everything is silent around Mark. He still doesn’t know why he’s here.

He slowly makes his way back up the hill in search for firewood. The ground is cold underneath his bare feet, the night freezing on the exposed skin of his arms. By the time he reaches the top of the hill, he can’t feel his fingers anymore.

When his arms are full, he decides to head back. He peers out over the treetops to find the best path down and a soft orange glow catches his eye. At first, he thinks it’s Jaemin, who must have somehow breathed life back into the fire, but then realises that he’s not looking at the bay, but at a valley at the other side of the hill instead. When he squints, he can make out the gentle meandering of a river between the canopy, and a small clearing in the forest, where the orange light gleams too steadily to be a fire.

The light beckons him. Mark isn’t cold anymore. With every step he takes, the ground grows warmer underneath his feet, like the sun is rising from the inside out. He stumbles over a rock and drops the firewood, but keeps going, the heat almost drawing him in. When he finds himself at the river’s edge, the rushing in his ears so loud he can’t think anymore, he spots a glinting yellow light between two big oaks, and wonders if these forests are really as dead as they sound.

Following the light, he soon notices another one a little further down the river, then another and another. They hang suspended in the air like fireflies, orange and yellow and red, casting shadows across the shrubbery that make them look alive. He listens to the way they seem to whisper at him. “ _Help,”_ they say, and Mark doesn’t question.

He's sweating now. The world has grown so hot that the grass under his feet has yellowed like it does in the summer at home. The rational voice in the back of his head tells him to turn around, that Jaemin must be worried, that there’s probably a wildfire somewhere, that the world is melting before his very eyes. The lights swarm him and he feels harboured.

He ends up at a clearing, probably the one he saw earlier, surrounded by weeping willows that drag their branches through the swirling water of the river. An orange glow comes from underneath them, hidden away from the world, like they are keeping something valuable sheltered in their arms. All the wandering lights leave Mark and pull him towards the light.

The air is sweltering. He pushes the branches aside and kneels down onto the ground, rocks digging into his bare knees. Underneath the weeping willows, Mark finds a boy.

The boy seems to be unconscious but relatively unharmed, the steady rise and fall of his chest an indication that he is still alive. There’s a band of light blue silk embroidered with golden thread tied around his head, the side stained dark red with dried blood. When Mark reaches out to touch him, he burns the tips of his fingers. Two large orange dogs sit by the boy’s feet and howl when Mark scoops him up to bring him back to the beach. The lights lead the way up the hill and down to the bay. Mark no longer feels tired.

He puts the boy down in front of Jaemin, the skin of his arms blistered and burnt. Waves creep up the sand and flames lick up the remaining coals of their fire, a stripe of gold dances along the horizon where the sky and the sea meet.

“ _Thank you,”_ the wind sings in Mark’s ears. The world heaves a sigh and collapses gratefully on top of his shoulders.

-

The boy awakens with a groan in the back of his throat and a glint in his dark eyes. Jaemin sits on his knees in the sand and gently daps cool salt water on his sweaty forehead. The world hasn’t moved for hours, the wind silent and the sea still. When the boy speaks up, something rumbles deep within all of them. Mark notices the flares on his eyelids again, orange and yellow and red, the tugging at his fingers and the knocking of his knees.

“Where am I?”

The voice comes warm like the sun. Jaemin smiles at Mark and turns to the boy to explain the situation. Mark plays with his pendant and keeps his distance. The burns on his arms are bright red in the flickering of the fire yet Mark feels no pain. The boy blinks up at him when Jaemin stops talking, gratitude on the tip of his tongue and the splitting of his lips when he reaches for Mark’s hands and bows before him.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he says. “I don’t know what happened to me, or where I come from, but as your friend has told me, you are the reason I’m alive. May the sun ever enlighten your world.”

The boy smiles at him and momentarily steals half of Mark’s breath. “It was my duty,” he replies, because he feels like it’s the truth.

“Are you a cherry blossom spirit?” The boy then asks, pointing at Jaemin’s pink hair.

Jaemin laughs and shakes his head, “No, no, I’m just a boy. What about you?” 

The boy looks up at the sky with a frown, as if whatever it is that he’s looking for is written in the obscurity above their heads. He drops his gaze and heaves a sigh. Mark looks at him and awaits his answer.

“My name is Donghyuck,” he says and then thinks for a second. The lights hang like a halo around his head and Mark thinks that he must be a god. “My name is Donghyuck and that’s all I can remember.”

-

They are sitting on the hillside, the grass wet with dew against three pairs of legs. Jaemin sits between Mark and Donghyuck and blows on a blade of grass, eliciting a shrill sound that fills the otherwise silent forest. Mark rests his gaze on the treetops, that stretch as far as the eye can see, and thinks about home, about his mother and his brother, about his father.

“I wonder if they’re worried about me,” Donghyuck says, with his eyes on the black sky above. The wind that rises sounds like fingers plucking at violin strings. Jaemin stops blowing the blade of grass and turns to look at Donghyuck.

“Who?”

“The people that lost me, my parents, my friends, whoever.”

Donghyuck’s voice sticks in his throat. Mark feels his fingers tingle with the uncontrollable urge to reach out to him, to touch him and get burnt and let their hands melt into one another long enough for Donghyuck to know that Mark exists. Instead Mark buries his fingers in the dirt and tries to ignore the warmth that seeps into his skin from where Donghyuck has yellowed the grass.

There’s something waiting to burst within him, ready to flood the whole world. The wind hangs off his shoulders to pull him back and the lights around Donghyuck’s head flicker dangerously. Mark doesn’t know Donghyuck, but the whole world screams that he’s important.

“I’m sure there’s someone out there looking for you.”

Mark thinks the entire universe must out there looking for Donghyuck.

-

Jaemin comes up with the idea to find out where Donghyuck came from instead of the other way around. He says that there used to be great cities to the West, where the forests ran into the foothills of the Murmuring Mountains, that there may be more to find out there than at the desolate seaside

It’s been nearly three days since Doyoung’s café dissolved around them, and the sun still hasn’t risen. Jaemin has taken it upon himself to ask the trees for food, but to no avail. They shudder in jubilation when they feel Donghyuck’s heat, but for all the world loves him, it seems hesitant to provide.

They walk an entire day on empty stomachs, until Donghyuck says he can’t feel his feet anymore, and fall asleep in the arms of the breeze. They’re a long way away from the beach now, so far that the wind no longer smells like salt, that Mark can’t remember the sand heating up under his feet when Donghyuck smiled.

-

“You make a poor camp for someone who’s lived here all his life,” Mark comments when Donghyuck steps back to admire his work.

It started raining a couple of hours ago, warm and weak, but enough to soak them to the bone nonetheless. Jaemin wandered off to find food, a sign, anything, the sword he’s been carrying around on his back for days held steadily in between his hands. The forest smells like resin and ozone, the rumbling of thunder still reverberating in their ears as the world around them grows quiet once again.

“You do it then,” Donghyuck replies with a scowl. “If you’re so good at it.”

So Mark does.

Donghyuck sits on a damp rock and pets his dogs and stares at Mark until he’s covered the entire structure with branches and the fuzzy green leaves of young beeches. There’s something akin to admiration in Donghyuck’s eyes. Mark can feel it burning on his skin.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“My father used to take me camping every summer before he died. He taught me how to build camps, set traps and navigate based on the stars.”

Donghyuck breathes a small cloud into the night. “I wish I knew how to do all that.”

Mark laughs at the way he’s gaping.

“I can teach you,” he proposes, and Donghyuck nods enthusiastically. “Except the navigating of course, as there are no stars here.”

“It’s weird,” Donghyuck replies. “I’m sure I can remember them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I remember looking at the stars before, there were so many constellations. Every morning the guard dog of dawn would pull the sun out of the ocean, and every evening the guard dog of dusk would push it back into the mountains. That’s the story people here have been telling for thousands of years.”

Donghyuck looks at Mark, the embers of memories he can't seem to recall flickering behind his irises. The dogs that sit at his feet have their ears perked up, like they are listening for something no one else can hear. Donghyuck sighs in frustration but the world does not respond.

Mark closes his eyes. “ _Hold him,”_ the rain whispers softly in his ears. He reaches for Donghyuck’s scorching hands without thinking twice, and watches as his vision turns orange and yellow and red.

When he opens them again, Donghyuck smiles, and his dark eyes mirror the world around them, illuminated by the light of millions of stars.

-

Mark awakens to a deep voice calling out his name. He crawls out of the camp without thinking twice, careful not to wake Jaemin and Donghyuck, who are still sleeping soundly, dreams nurtured by the rustling of leaves and the whispering of the wind.

He follows the voice until it leads him onto a hilltop. The sky is pale blue overhead, the day at its cusp. When Mark turns to the East, he can see the first rays of sunlight glittering on the surface of the sea like gold. The trees around him stretch their branches to catch it, and dance through the grass with elation, their trunks swaying and their leaves fluttering.

Mark laughs when the trees ask him to join their dance. He is not familiar with their movements but he took a hip-hop class in middle school, and makes a show out of the only routine he can remember. The trees hand him their fruits and Mark stuffs his pockets full for Jaemin and Donghyuck before he bites down into a peach.

As the sun rises their celebration is joined by others. Mark is greeted by tigers and bears, by nine-tailed foxes and white rabbits that bring mooncakes in honour of the high king Jaehyun, by birds with human faces and dragons with beards so long they resemble clouds in the bright blue sky. They dance and they sing and they joke. For a moment Mark feels the world lift from his shoulders.

There are creatures Mark recognises from stories his mother used to tell him, from movies and old books. He knows fauns and centaurs and goblins, and he knows of their loyalty and their love through all Jaemin has told him.

They greet Mark like he will keep the sky from falling and Mark greets them back, thanking them for something he is not so sure exists.

The day grows tired as one of Donghyuck’s dogs runs across the pale pink sky to drag the sun into the snow-covered mountains. Mark looks at it in wonder as things fall into place, and thinks he finally understands why he’s here.

.

“I welcome you, Solians.”

The deep voice from before fills the sky and the earth until everything grows quiet. All around him the creatures bow deeply into the direction of the sea. Mark looks up and finds the voice belonging to something so magical that he can feel it rattling his bones.

The Haetae stands before them like a god. Its built is lion-like and the fur on Its back orange and yellow and red with curls like the flames of a fire. Its eyes are a piercing blue and Its teeth glint like daggers of pearl when It speaks. On Its forehead sits a golden horn, reflecting the sunlight onto them all. Mark bows his head and sinks to the ground to kneel, his knees giving way under the weight of utter admiration.

“Rise, Lee Minhyung, Protector of the Sun, Harbinger of Peace, for the world ceases to exist when you remain on your knees.”

Mark slowly rises to look the Haetae in the eyes. All the Solians raise their heads to look at him and ball their right hands and paws into fists to place them in the centre of their chests.

“I don’t think You have the right person, Haetae,” he whispers meekly. “I’m just a boy, Jaemin is the king.”

The Haetae laughs, a sound so wonderful it fills Mark with bliss. The world grows steady underneath his feet once again.

“That is now just the problem, my boy. There are kings for the mountains and the moons, queens for the forests and the sea. Yet there’s no one who can bring the world joy. If the sun doesn’t rise, the people grow dark, which results in all beauty’s demise.”

“But what can I do?”

“Defeat the darkness that lies at the heart of this war. Bring the Sun Prince home to the Temple of Light, and the sun will rise once more.”

Mark’s nod is resolute, although his fingers are trembling and his knees are knocking together, fear coursing like wildfire through his veins. He wishes to run away, but the world holds him back. All the Solians gather around him and one by one press their fists onto his heart.

“Remember, Lee Minhyung, you are the reason the sun rises every morning.” The Haetae steps forward and reaches out a paw to touch his heart. Mark can hear his father’s voice reminding him of the same thing. The pendant around his neck burns against his skin.

“I’ll bring him home,” he decides, because he is the only hope, for them, and for Donghyuck. “I will do anything for him.”

As the world is once again plunged into darkness, the Haetae glows like Donghyuck did on the morning Mark found him. It nods and the Solians disperse without a sound, the forest growing quiet. The trees stop dancing and the wind stops singing.

“It was You, wasn’t it?” Mark questions, when the world feels like it’s been turned to stone. “It was You who lead me to Donghyuck that morning.”

The Haetae smiles earnestly, Its eyes a brilliant blue in the dying light. It does not speak a word but Mark understands.

“Go now, my boy. Give the world back its sun, and the people its joy.”

Mark nods and takes another deep bow before they part. When he looks up again, the Haetae has vanished along with the last traces of sunlight. Around him the forest sounds like the sun has burnt out thousands of years ago.

Everything feels cold but the pendant that sits on his heart, where all the Solians’ hands had been, burns hotter than ever before.

-

The valley stretches itself out before them. Jaemin stands on the edge of the cliff and runs his hands through his hair, the roots black like the river frothing in the depths below them. Even from so far away its impetuous rushing sounds threatening. Mark fears that if they get any closer, the rumble will swallow them alive before the water can.

In the distance Mark can see the city walls, orange light flickering where he assumes the gates to be. The vague outline of a building against the stars catches his eye. He can’t quite make out its shape, but the roof is slanted, jagged edges curling upwards as if to keep something from falling. It’s placed on top of pillars so high that Mark wonders if he could touch the stars if he just stretched his fingers far enough.

“That’s the Temple of Light,” Donghyuck says, and he’s been so quiet for hours that Mark almost forgot he was there at all.

“Do you think we might find anything about your family there?” Jaemin asks as he spins on his heel, the stars in his eyes like the hope that sits on his tongue.

Donghyuck shrugs and looks at the grass that shrivels up around his bare feet. There's a curve in his spine, something akin to dejection pulling him down, like the stars falling to their death above their heads. He seems small in comparison to the mountains that doom up behind him like sleeping giants, the immense cedars that lead the way down into the city, the steep cliffs and the swirling water.

Mark looks at him and remembers the press of the Haetae’s large paw against his chest, something expanding below his scorched skin, between his aching ribs. It feels like love as much as it does guilt.

He hasn’t told them about the Haetae. He found them back in the camp that morning, his pockets full of apples and chestnuts and courage, and he didn’t tell them a thing. He came down the hill with a bounce in his step and the fate of the universe on his shoulders and didn’t crack. Jaemin hugged him for the food and Donghyuck smiled with the sun in his eyes. Mark wonders if it had only been a reflection of the daylight he carried with him.

“We should go find out,” he proposes.

Jaemin starts down the hills into the valley and Mark follows, looking back to find Donghyuck still at the edge of the cliff, crouched down with his face to the moons, eyes closed in prayer. He makes his way back up the path and stretches a hand to touch Donghyuck’s shoulder, and finds him real and solid beneath the pads of his fingers, still burning, although the heat seems to have been lessening in intensity.

“Come on,” he smiles, and motions for Donghyuck to follow him. When he doesn’t budge, Mark carefully folds his fingers through the emptiness between Donghyuck’s and pulls him along. There's a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. If he didn’t know better, Mark would think the brief gust of warm wind that ruffles their hair is merely a coincidence.

They follow Jaemin into the forest and down the hill, not once hesitating as they chase the footprints he leaves behind. And as the world quietly turns away from Donghyuck, recoiling into obscurity, no longer remembering the gentle touch of sunlight on damp earth and young leaves and exposed skin, his eyes grow dull, and the grass greener beneath his feet.

-

The gate to the city is unguarded, the fires on both sides burning steadily, but the dusty road completely void of life, wavering underneath their dirty feet. A gust of cold wind runs along Mark’s spine when he peers between the pillars, and he unconsciously reaches for Donghyuck, for the warmth of his fingers, the refuge he’s built within him. Jaemin motions for them to get behind him and pulls his sword. In the weak light of the flames, Mark can see his hands trembling.

They follow Jaemin into the city, scouring its unfamiliar streets for a sign of life, and find them as desolate as the forest, eerily silent, one after the other. The houses are hidden behind low stone walls, unwelcoming. In the red light of the lanterns that hang along the roofs’ edges, it almost looks like they’re on fire.

On the square in front of the Temple of Light, a bunch of large black crows caw loudly at the three of them. Donghyuck trails his fingers along the statue that stands in the middle of the square. His face is lit up by the moon, grey and stoic. He doesn’t move for so long that Mark fears he’s been turned into a statue himself.

“I think someone is watching us,” Jaemin pipes up. Mark and Donghyuck turn to him. He's pointing at the roof of the temple of light, hundreds of meters above their heads, where the crows are now circling them, keeping a watchful gaze on the only movement in the otherwise dormant city.

Donghyuck turns to look at Mark, his face alarmed. On the opposite end of the square, a little orange light appears behind a window, trembling mid-air. “ _Bring us the sun,”_ it whispers in Mark’s ear. He pulls Donghyuck away without question.

“Where are you going?” Jaemin yells after him but Mark doesn’t respond, just motions for him to follow them.

The door to the house opens with a creak. For a split second everything is so dark and quiet that Mark wonders if they’re dead, but then a red lantern illuminates the space between them, attached to it the wrinkly hand of an old woman.

“Thank you, old lady. May the sun ever enlighten your world.” Donghyuck sits on his knees and bows so deeply that his dark hair fans out across the wooden floorboards.

She laughs softly, a sound so joyful it feels misplaced in the darkness of the city. It bounces off the walls and fills the space between Mark’s ribs in a way so familiar he feels harboured.

The woman motions for them to take a seat at the table and brings them sikhye and rice noodle soup. She sits cross-legged on the floor and watches them eat in silence as the lights buzz in the window. Mark sighs into his bowl and thinks of home.

.

“I miss Doyoung,” Jaemin says, his face orange and yellow and red. With Donghyuck asleep with his head in Mark’s lap, it feels just like they are back at the café.

After dinner the old woman had given them a stack of blankets and shown them a room with the floors hot like rocks in the sun. They had not known how to thank her but she simply brushed it off. “For Him,” she said, her voice smooth and kind, and looked at Mark knowingly before retreating back into the shadows of her home.

Donghyuck thought it was peculiar, and Jaemin found it suspicious, but Mark felt the Haetae’s breath in his face like summer wind and smiled at them, the food warm in his stomach and the floor melting his frozen feet.

“Do you remember?” Jaemin looks up at him, candlelight flickering in his black irises, the pink tips of his hair like rays of morning sun. “The summer I came back from visiting my family in France?”

Mark nods slowly. There had been a bump in their friendship, the summer after middle school, a petty argument that rapidly escalated into a full-fledged fight, a wildfire spiralled out of control. Jaemin left for France a week later, and Mark found out via his Instagram story. There was no goodbye.

When he came back, Jaemin was distant, his hair blue like the bags under his eyes, and Mark was worried, but he did not dare break the silence that had grown between them. He was never good at being serious. Renjun eventually forced them to make up, because he was tired of the drama, and having to navigate between his two best friends. And they pretended nothing ever happened between them at all.

Donghyuck stirs in Mark’s lap. Mark rakes his fingers through his hair and shushes him back to sleep. Jaemin looks at them with watery eyes and a wet smile.

“Did you come here that summer?”

Jaemin nods, a tear rolling golden down his cheek.

“We were here for years, Mark. I don’t think I could have imagined a happier life. There came a time where I didn’t even miss home anymore. But I did think of you, of how we ended. Every battle I was so scared to die, because I didn’t know what that would mean for me in our world. I imagined you finding out I was gone, and that the last thing I ever said to you was how bad of a friend you were.”

“I’m sorry for not believing you, Jaemin,” Mark replies, reaching out to hold Jaemin’s hand. Jaemin laughs and shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t believe me either.”

They sit in silence for a while, listening to the howling of the wind through cracks in the windowpane, the rushing of steam beneath the floor. There’s the sound of footsteps on gravel coming from outside the front door, muted, like the person is walking on their heels. Mark’s heart skips beats like stones on the river.

“There’s something I need to tell you about Donghyuck.” He whispers frantically, the footsteps growing louder by the second.

“You’re in love with him?” Jaemin jokes, and if Mark wasn’t so scared, he’d flick Jaemin's forehead and laugh it away and ignore the stutters in his chest.

“He’s the sun, Jaemin. Donghyuck is the sun.”

Jaemin looks confused for a second before realisation settles on his features. He hits his forehead with the palm of his hand, eliciting a sound that wakes Donghyuck up. “And now what?”

“I think someone is looking for us. I’ve been hearing footsteps all around the house. He’s not safe here.”

“Who’s not safe?” Donghyuck pipes up, rubbing dreams away from his tired eyes, his voice weak. Mark brings a hand to his cheek to find it cold.

“We’re leaving, Donghyuck. We’re going to the Temple.”

Jaemin rushes to pack their things but Mark stops him.

“Stay. Distract whoever is coming. The future of this world depends on us.”

“Be safe, Mark.” Jaemin wraps his arms around Mark’s neck and holds him close. “I don’t know how I would explain to your mom that you died trying to save the sun.”

Mark laughs and points at the queen’s dagger that sits in his belt loop.

“I take it you know how to handle a sword?” He replies and bows deeply, grinning all the while despite the shaking of his knees. “King Jaemin.”

Mark squeezes his hand one last time before pulling Donghyuck upstairs, looking for the old lady, but she is nowhere to be found.

When he pushes Donghyuck onto the roof, the floorboards creaking under his feet like the house is popping its joints, he spots the orange cat in a corner. It walks into the silver pool of moonlight below the window and stares at Mark with its piercing blue eyes. The sun pendant burns around his neck.

Donghyuck sits huddled up on the roof, hiding from sight behind the gentle slope. He’s shivering when Mark slides the necklace over his head, his face sickly pale, his hair dark.

The cat jumps onto the windowsill and positions itself between Donghyuck’s knees with a purr. Donghyuck looks at it with his mouth slightly agape, its golden gleam reflected in his wide eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispers after a while, and bows his head as the cat quietly slips away. Mark watches it go it until it disappears between the rooftops.

Donghyuck turns to him with a half-smile, the tips of his hair curling orange and his eyes bright, and there’s not a world in existence where Mark would not die for him.

“We have to go,” he says then, and Mark can hear the foundations of the world shaking within the trembling of his lips.

He gives Donghyuck a reassuring smile and an unspoken promise.

“Let’s go then.”

-

The stairs seem never-ending, orange and yellow and red beneath their tired feet as they drag themselves to heaven. Mark sings a song to fill the silence, his voice falling down to the trembling floor, words of unrequited love and sunshine for no ears but theirs to hear.

Mark doesn’t dare look down, scared that he’ll find the floor just below, that they are stuck in an endless spiral of stairs. Donghyuck holds his hand tightly and trails the history of the entire world that is carved out along the walls with the other.

“Do you think they found Jaemin?” Donghyuck asks him, his index finger resting on the image of a young boy on the back of a lion. Mark shrugs and keeps going.

The world sits heavily on top of his shoulders, his feet are cold under the tiles. He's long forgotten what the Haetae’s voice sounded like. In front of them are only more stairs, the roof so far above them it might as well not exist.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, but Mark doesn’t look up. Something is dragging him down, like thousands of hands are gripping the back of his tunic and hanging on for dear life. Every step feels like he’s climbing a mountain, like he’s swimming against the stream.

“Mark, look at me!” Donghyuck’s voice sounds more alive than it has in a long time, the sheer force of it knocking him off his feet. Mark looks up and sees the sun. Mark loves him.

Donghyuck rushes down the stairs to catch him, black smoke curling around his torso before Donghyuck’s warm arms can.

“Mark come on,” Donghyuck cries. He sounds as desperate as he does determined. His voice makes Mark feel harboured. Mark knows he’ll die for him.

“Go, Donghyuck,” he whispers, his eyelids heavy, but his body light. “The world needs you.”

There's a soft press of lips where his hair meets his skin.

“I’m coming back for you.”

The world behind Mark’s eyelids flashes orange and yellow and red before it goes black.

-

The sand feels warm against Mark’s cheek. He sits up and blinks slowly, the world a white so blinding it makes his head hurt. He keeps his eyes closed and listens to the tide coming in, the seagulls screeching far above his head, the wind singing quietly in his ears.

“Rise, Lee Minhyung, Protector of the Sun, Harbinger of Peace, king of Solis.”

The Haetae breathes softly in his face, like summer wind, a warm hug from his mother. Mark has never felt so peaceful.

“Haetae, tell me,” he begins, his voice floating on the wind. He curls his toes into the sand, the world steady underneath his back. “Am I in heaven?”

A laugh, gentle and kind.

“No, my dear boy. Love is what saved you in the end.”

Mark reaches for the sky.

“Donghyuck?”

The whole world falls silent and Mark listens to the humming of the sun. The buzzing in his ears sounds almost like a blessing.

“Love, my boy.”

-

Sunlight filters through the leaves of the weeping willows and falls in small pools onto the surface of the pond. Jaemin stands on the bridge, feeding small pieces of bread to the orange fish that are hungrily jumping out of the water. He laughs. Donghyuck sits beside him and lets the sun kiss his face.

Donghyuck notices him first, his eyes lighting up like the world around him as he jumps up and runs straight into Mark’s outstretched arms. The ground shakes with his every step, the sunlight wavering above the trees here and there just from the sheer power he holds.

Mark holds him like he can be whisked away at any moment, like the night will fall again without the certainty of another day. Donghyuck buries his face in his shoulder and sighs deeply.

“I thought you would never wake up.”

“How long was I asleep for?”

Jaemin joins their embrace, jumping on top of Mark, toppling them all over into the bright green grass. When Donghyuck sits up, there’s a yellow patch in the shape of him.

“It’s been three whole months, bro,” Jaemin provides him with the answer and Mark sighs. “Donghyuck saved you!”

Mark turns his gaze from Jaemin to Donghyuck. The light blue silk that is tied around his head contrasts starkly with the bright orange of his hair, the brown of his skin. His smile is so radiant that it hurts Mark’s eyes.

“I told you I’d come back for you,” he shrugs with a nonchalance that makes the trees shudder.

Mark laughs and shakes his head in disbelief.

“You’re crazy.”

Donghyuck grins and the sun lives inside of him.

-

The courtyard of the palace is packed to the brim, the whole country trying to catch a glimpse of the Sun Prince who has finally descended from the heavens, of the King of Old, of the boy from another world. Their cheers of joy and exuberance drift on the warm wind. It smells like salt and sunshine.

The Haetae stands on the edge of the lookout point, the hills rolling behind It until they reach the sea, the surf so loud it’s audible all the way to the palace. Its horn glitters in the sunlight. Mark thinks of the day they first met and smiles. When he scans the crowd before him, he finds the bears, the dragons, the tree spirits. They look up at him in gratitude.

The whole country had celebrated the return of the sun, rice wine flowed for seven days and seven nights, music filling the forests and red lanterns lighting up the skies. Mark, Jaemin and Donghyuck danced until the moons fell out of the sky. Even the mountains awakened to join the celebration, murmuring quietly all throughout the nights, lulling the world to sleep when the guard dog of dawn pulled the sun from the sea.

The evil that once found a home in the deep lakes, treacherous ravines, unlit forests, in every cut and crease of Solis, has been defeated for good. The Haetae had chosen to put Its divine judgement upon all that brought despair and relieve the world from darkness. Mark keeps his face towards the sun and forgets about the dark days.

“However much we owe them, it’s time that our saviours go relieve their own world from despair.” The Haetae sounds sorrowful. Jaemin turns to look at It and smiles sadly.

It had told them before the celebrations that they would have to go home earlier that they would have wished. Jaemin cried into the Haetae’s fiery curls. “It’s too soon,” he’d said and the Haetae had nudged his head with Its nose and smiled gently. “It’s time you find a home in your own world too, little one. I will always be with you.”

All Mark could think about was Donghyuck. “You’ll come back, my dear boy,” the Haetae reassured him, but Mark did not know how he would ever feel the sun on his skin again without thinking of Donghyuck smiling beside him.

Mark knows Donghyuck now, the Sun Prince. He is gold and glory, the world bows at his feet. But above all, Donghyuck is a boy, radiant and unsure. Mark has found in him the character of his friends, the things that make him feel at home. He knows that Donghyuck enjoys hip-hop music, even when it came through the dingy speakers of Mark’s phone, back when the battery hadn't died yet, that he could have been a musical prodigy had he been born in another universe, that he could have made Mark happy.

He refused to think about leaving until he could no longer ignore the way the moons grew fuller every night.

In a memory, the Haetae tells him Donghyuck brings the world joy but he can't remember ever feeling as mournful as he does now, the Solians spread out before him, their hands and paws balled in the middle of their chests in _goodbye, fare well, may the sun ever enlighten your world_.

And Donghyuck stands there, next to the Haetae, almost in its shadow had he not been so radiant. A tear glistens in the corner of his eye but Mark knows he won't cry.

“Come back for me,” he whispers into Mark’s ear, like the rain, the wind, the sun. Mark grins and kisses the red of his lips and the gold of his cheeks.

Jaemin coughs loudly beside them and Donghyuck laughs, the world shaking soundlessly beneath their feet. Mark will never forget him.

“Always.”

And as Mark trails Jaemin into the mountains, following the sun in its wake, he turns back to look at the life he leaves behind, the people, the country, the boy he loves. He keeps his eyes on them until he can no longer distinguish the trees from people and allows his tears to fall. Jaemin reaches for his hand as they jump off the edge of the world, and everything flashes orange and yellow and red.

**Author's Note:**

> IM BACK DID YOU GUYS MISS ME 
> 
> anywayyyy this is the most self indulgent thing ive ever written im having mental breakdowns over uni and binged the narnia movies and i justtttt had to do this okay ive literally lisetend to the entire nct discography and i miss them so much this was the result of an accumulation of indescribable emotions and has been sitting in my drafts for a while but i changed it up a little and fuck it why not put it into the world  
> i used a mix of both european and korean/chinese mythology/folklore so please if you find any mistakes i did a lot of research but nobodys perfect  
> also i know jaemin doesnt have family in france but like for the sake of the story lets just pretend jaehyun didnt live in fawking connecticut but in like normandy or wherever instead okay cool thnks  
> if you read this thank you so much please leave a kudo or a comment mwah love you
> 
> ps: i posted this before under a different name but i originally wrote it like this just a lil different but it didtn seem right not uploading this one as it was originally written as a markhycuk fic so if u ever read this before im not a thief mwah  
> pps: i love you peter pevensie only king ever
> 
> <3


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